


Meanwhile in Purgatory

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gordon Walker never expected to wake up in purgatory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meanwhile in Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

> For Simone

When Gordon woke up to grey sky scudded over with thunder clouds, latticed with treetops matted together in a thick forest, a stone digging in the small of his back, his hands clawing into the earth, dirt crusting his knuckles, throat parched and swollen, he scrambled to his feet, shifting his balance, prepared to fight.

There was nothing but silence and the weak seep of misted up rain that never actually formed into drops against his face.

He should be dead, like any monster, like any vampire.

He had said it would be the last thing he did, after saving the world from Sam Winchester—which--

Gordon shuddered, his hands pushing against his throat, feeling the way his breath caught in the hollow of it.

No pulse—but no vampire had a pulse.

Just his breath, rough and coarse, heaving almost, flooding his muscles and his limbs and his head with something like oxygen.

If he still believed in baptism, in rebirth and renewal, it might have felt a little bit like that.

For the first time in a long time, there was no physical pain. Not the stiff shoulder from when someone had caught his fist, wrenched it out of the socket too many times, not the charlie-horse cramp in his calf that never felt like it ever unwound enough, always a little twinge when he walked.

Gordon licked his lips, then laughed. It echoed under the trees, surrounded him. Monsters had an afterlife. This was the afterlife because Gordon knew what dying felt like—he’d experienced it twice, hadn’t he? Had dealt it out enough to know.

And now. Here he stood, tall, newborn, because there weren’t any scars stitching his flesh back together—not that bite on his ribs from a job gone south, not the smooth slice in his forearm from when he had been poisoned--

He rubbed his tongue over his sharp teeth—still a vampire. Wondered if every other vampire he’d ever killed was here.

Wondered if Miriam were still here. Had woken up here, alone for the first time in her life.

Gordon bowed his head, breath trapped in the tower of his neck once more. He was a hunter wasn’t he? He’d woken up here in this afterlife, in this whatever, and maybe it was wrong and maybe it was right, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it—after all, they were all monsters here. Whatever happened here, they brought on themselves. But there wasn’t any world to save--but he could do what he’d always done—what he had already done once before.

Hunt. Hunt for Miriam. He said her name into the twilight, into the mist, to the trees.

Started walking and never looked back.

~*~

Purgatory was vast and empty—sometimes, in the corner of his eye, Gordon thought that the trees looked more like skeletons, fancied that, like in the stories he read as a kid, some to Miriam, some to himself, he was actually walking along the back of a monster and wouldn’t that be something, an afterlife that wasn’t anywhere but within a monster, within their belly or on their back.

Wondered what that would mean, then put the thought aside. It didn’t really matter in the long run.

Sometimes, he saw others, others like him. They must have been here longer because they were thin, ragged, like their souls had been scraped along too vast a space, and this was just the ragged tatters.

Their breaths were cold, made even his skin goosebump in the dark.

He cursed himself when the djinn caught him by surprise—mistook their breath for the tree limbs rattling in the soft kiss of the wind, the whisper of their step for the quiet sigh of purgatory.

Until they gripped his shoulder, forced him to turn around. He knew about djinns—pretended to grant wishes and suck you dry (like a vampire, and he almost laughed)—but he had no lamb’s blood, had no knife.

The blue tattoos barely glowed in the twilight, though their hand was already on his face, cradling his jaw. He expected them to curve their fingers down, spear him with their claws to hold him still, but they’re soft against him, looking up to him. “What do you wish for?” they said, slow, voice faint and far away, even though they’re right there.

“How long have you been here?” Gordon said, holding their wrists, pushing their hands back so that they would stop touching him.

They made a strange noise in their throat. “Long time. Back when there were many of us. Before—this place existed—“ and they slipped their hands from Gordon’s, spread their arms limply. “I was here when this place was built. I tried to stop it, you know. Me and many others. “

“You mean—this isn’t an afterlife?”

The djinn laughed at him, holding their belly, like the force of it would unravel their skin from their bones. “It’s hell. They might not call it that, but it is. It ‘s hell. There’s fire in your stomach, and it crawls up your throat and it tears you to pieces and sometimes you hear screaming, but you don’t know who it is and sometimes, it’s actually you.”  They blinked, held up their hand, a bit of blue flaring from their knuckles. “What do you wish for?”

“To find Miriam,” Gordon said as he stepped away from the cup of their palm. 

They lunged after him, pushed him against a tree, and he braced himself against them, hands on their shoulders, holding them away from him, even though their breath was damp and cold against his neck.  “What do you wish for?” he said.

“To eat. To remember feeling something beyond this hunger.” They pushed closer, tilted their head down. “I’m so hungry and you’re not even human.”

“I’m a vampire,” Gordon pushed himself to say, because he couldn’t ever let himself forget. Not even here.

They stepped away from him, letting him go, and even after he watched them disappear into the mist, wondered if it was the wind whispering in the trees or if it was them for a long while after.

Gordon walked. He missed being able to tell day from night. Missed being able to tell the direction by the sun (there was no sun) or the stars (he doubted there were stars but the cloud cover never actually let up enough for a definitive conclusion). Once, he turned and examined the earth behind him. He left no footprints, as if he had never been there, as if he wasn’t there—but he was because the djinn had seen him, because he was beginning to feel the cramped feelings of hunger mewling inside.

It was a cruel taunt, he thought, that sometimes there were berries, red and purple ones, growing on shrubs. But, when he put them in his mouth, they left him hungrier than ever.

It was a good joke, he figured. The kind of joke where it hurt to laugh.

Then he heard someone singing  _Doggie_ like Anslem Douglas, “Who let the dogs out--” and he pushed his way through until he saw someone crouching amidst a herd of skeleton dogs, their fur falling out in clumps, each one trying to nose the hand of the singing man, their blunt fangs scraping his wrist, dry pink tongues lapping at his fingers.

The man looked up then, grinning a bit. “Hi there.” Then he leaned back on his heels, nodded, and said. “I know you. Gordon Walker. Hunter. Well, that ‘s not what it said on your file with the FBI. But I know.”

“You weren’t the FBI agent hunting me,” Gordon said. “And you’re human. How are you even here?”

Victor shook his head. “Nope. But you know, if I had lived instead of getting caught up in the apocalypse, dying in place of the Winchesters, then getting dredged up from heaven and dying again—only as a ghost this time which means I’m a ‘monster’ now—“ and he laughed dry and crisp like it was the only thing he could fucking do because any other alternative would be so much worse – “my ass got booted all the way back over here. The monster mash. Except no one’s dancing.”

“You think you don’t deserve to be here?” Gordon said. “You’re a monster. Probably came back as a vengeful spirit, right?”

“No one asked me,” Victor said. “But I know plenty of people--humans as you say-- who were monsters. And believe me, they were sitting pretty up in heaven, golden halos spit-shiny and full of grace despite all the things they took and all the people they killed.”  

Gordon looked down at the hell hound nosing his knee. Could see how it was trying to open up its jaws, to crush meat and limb in one snap. But it was too weak. Half its teeth were missing anyway.

“Go on,” Victor said. “Pet. She wants some attention.”

“It wants to eat,” Gordon said, keeping his hand clenched at his side, digging into the meat of his thigh.  “Look at it—too weak to chew.”

Victor stretched down on the ground, hands under his head. One of the hell hounds snuggled up close, head on his stomach. “Who doesn’t want a good steak or lobster though?”

Gordon stood over him, noticed that Victor had darkened his eyebrows, that his lips were stained a deep red—perhaps from the berries that sometimes grew on the shrubs. Gordon licked his lips. “All the monsters here are blood thirsty, hungry. Now that they’re here without a drop of human blood to drink? Who cares. They shouldn’t have been eating us anyway. Killing innocent people.” He rubbed the hollow in his middle, the thing that used to be a stomach. They deserved whatever punishment they got, whatever hunger.

“Sometimes, at night, when I wasn’t thinking about some asshole who went around murdering other folk,” Victor said, “I’d wonder what the cows thought or the lobsters thought right before we dropped them in the pot.”

“That’s different,” Gordon said.

“Is it? Is it really? You know,” Victor said, swallowing hard, “It used to drive me in circles. It still kind of does actually—but we all need to eat, don’t we?”

“What—you think there’s a shade of grey here? There isn't when it comes to monsters. Just what kind of cop are you?”

Victor’s silent for a moment. “I don’t know. I just know that this world here? is out of whack. No balance. Just a bunch of hunters with nothing to hunt. Nothing to eat.” His hand dropped to the head of one of the hell hounds, scratching behind her ear. “How is this okay? Whose idea was it to make this kinda prison that’s too big and too small and doesn’t even provide someone the courtesies of basic decency?”

“You mean humans to snack on?” Gordon said.

Victor shook his head. “Nah, I don’t mean that. There’s just—there’s gotta be a better way. A new way that someone hasn’t thought of yet.” Victor bowed his head, smiled a little. “Lucky that I’m an insubstantial ghost. One of my wives told me I always get grumpy if I wait too long between meals.”

Gordon sat down, cross legged, beside Victor. “You’re wrong—from before. I am hunting here. For someone.”

“Who?”

“My sister. Miriam.”

“She a vampire, like you?”

Gordon nodded, gripping his knees, trying not to remember how fanged her smile had been when she’d said,  _Hello, brother._

“What are you gonna do when you find her?”

“I’m going to give her a kiss—just like the last time. Just like Judas.” Gordon scrubbed his palm over his face, mouth tasting sour. “And then I’m going to say that I missed her.” And maybe, just maybe, she’d say,  _I’d missed you too_. He hoped that she’d never offer him her forgiveness. Because that was just one thing he couldn’t ever take.

“You know,” Victor said, “I wasted my whole damn life busting my ass to nail a handful of guys when there was this whole other thing just there beyond the horizon, in the corner of my eye. I don’t intend on wasting my afterlife too.” He sat up, looked straight at Gordon. “I’m good at finding people if you want help.”

Gordon looked at his lap, mouth twisting up. He worked best alone, but that was then, this is now. He stood up, held his hand out to Victor, who gripped him tight, allowed Gordon to raise him to his feet.

Victor beside him, Gordon walked off into the purgatory grey, a few hellhounds following at his heels. “Let’s get to work, then.” 


End file.
